Course Offerings

This course introduces students to interdisciplinary and graduate studies in the Communication, Culture & Technology program. This class aims at helping students to develop an expertise so they can contribute to an intellectual community. At the same time the course will equip students with an academic and professional problem-solving framework. Students will explore interdisciplinarity in communications, cultural, media, and technology studies by taking the initial steps to identify the communities to which they want to matter, to determine what foundations/ assumptions/ viewpoints exist in said community, and to figure out how to contribute knowledge to the ongoing conversation. Check out some of our students recent 5005 projects.

5006 is about opening up the black box – a course that teaches *how to de-black box* technologies as sociotechnical systems in a way that reveals and inspires opportunities for participation and intervention. In 5006, students de-black box across five broad, overlapping areas: Histories & Iterations, Motivations & Power Players, Metal & Bits, Infrastructure & Standards, and Users & Non-Users. See some of our students recent 5006 projects.

See below for a list of recent Methods courses

Thousands of organizations now use video to tell their stories to their clients and the public. This course will equip students with the visual, technical, and interviewing skills necessary to plan, produce, and edit professional quality video stories, designed for multi-purpose distribution in traditional, social, and digital media. This class focuses on using audio and video effectively to tell feature stories that can be distributed for informational or marketing purposes. It is ideal for students and career-seekers with a passion for communications, advocacy, journalism, or marketing. You will practice the fundamentals of video storytelling; gathering clear, compelling sound, shooting expressive and captivating video, and learning creative digital editing. You can use a digital camera or a phone with a video camera. You will post your final video for online distribution across multiple platforms of your choice. This class will be a combination of lectures, class discussion, location video shooting, and in-class exercises. There will be both indoor and outdoor assignments.

Whether you are an entrepreneur looking to create a new product, an everyday consumer who wants to personalize your life with interactive artifacts, or a creative spirit who wants to express yourself through physical media, knowing how to combine physical and virtual elements in meaningful ways is the most important communication skill of the 21st century. Interaction Design: Electronics And Semantics (IDEAS) will teach you how to create and test working prototypes of electronic artifacts and to understand how these artifacts acquire meaning to their users. Through lectures on basic electronics, readings on creativity and design, and hands-on exercises in prototyping techniques, this class will give you the foundation you need to begin creating physically interactive artifacts in fields like wearable computing, toy design, new media art, robotics, and many more. After mastering tutorials and exercises in topics such as circuit design, 3D modeling and printing, mold-making, and others, students will use an iterative design process to design three custom electronics projects and fabricate the containers that give them meanings as products. After completing this course students will have intermediate level knowledge of concepts in electronics and design.

Social Network Analysis (SNA) allows patterns in relationships to be graphed and explored. Whether tracking the flow of information or influence, SNA provides a valuable tool for uncovering the important implications of relationships and social structures.This class balances theory and practice, concepts and computations. The goal of this course is to enable students to conduct SNA research of their own. Students will learn how SNA is currently being used; applications that include the analysis of politics, social media, and disease transmission, among others. Hypothesis testing is a major topic for this course. Students will gain matrix manipulation skills and data management skills. Students will also learn how to graph relationships given a set of data and the mathematical techniques that unearth key pieces of information in these graphs.Data collection methods and ethics will be explored. Strategies for efficient coding and data entry are key aspects of the course that aim to build practical skills. Methods to extract networks of tweets via the Twitter API will be introduced. Students will learn relevant mathematical techniques in a supportive, highly verbal manner. Students will also learn computer-based SNA techniques using R and R Studio. These skills will assist students in completing research projects throughout the course of the semester.

This course introduces the key concepts for understanding everything we call “code” and “systems of meaning” in ways that students can apply directly to advancing careers in any field. This course opens up the “black boxes” of computing for everyone, and is designed especially for students from non-technical backgrounds. But if you have done some computer coding already, you will understand more clearly how and why programming languages and digital media are designed the way they are, and how and why we can use “code” in one form (in the “digital language” of computers) for representing, processing, and transmitting all forms of the primary “code” of human thought and expression (in words, images, numbers, graphics, sounds, and video). In order to “crack the code” of all forms of code, you will learn multidisciplinary methods by learning how to combine and apply knowledge, concepts, and methods from several disciplines on our key topics. You will learn the primary methods and concepts from design thinking, systems thinking, semiotics (the study of sign systems), cognitive science and philosophy, and from key concepts in computer science Learning goals: This course will enable you to learn about computing and all forms of “code” in a new way, by understanding the history of ideas that led to our digital computing era and by actually seeing how it all works in “hands on” practice with software, programming code, and Internet apps. By learning the essential background on “why” and “how” everything we do in computing and digital media is possible by the way it is designed, you will also gain a new motivation for applying this understanding to both the “how to” side of programming (if you want to learn how to code and work with others in designing applications), and to working with others in organizations where design thinking skills enable you to take on a leadership role.

This course serves as an introduction to some of the central questions of critical theory as they help us to understand popular and mass cultures. The course follows the intellectual genealogy of Kantian and Hegelian philosophy as these critical projects have influenced European thinkers such as Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Simone de Beauvoir, Guy Debord, Michel Foucault and Slavoj Zizek. In turn, we read the works of these writers in order to explore the contemporary media-scape that we inhabit. While many of the concerns of critical theory can be understood in relation to other forms of cultural production, such as literature, high art, anthropology, history, and sociology, for the purposes of this seminar we will be examining the readings with an eye to the impact of such phenomena as cinema, television, photography, the internet, recorded sound, etc. Central to the course’s project is to understand the effects of the philosophical work of European philosophers and writer as their analyses and critiques of human thought, politics, language and social interactions have shaped more recent work in such settings as the Frankfurt school, psychoanalysis, feminism, gender studies, critical race studies, semiotics, media theory, and cultural studies. Critical Theory assembles a range of intellectual practices, and all of them in some manner stem from two related enterprises: 1) the liberation of humans from the conditions of their existence that they may not realize function as limits upon their thoughts and actions and 2) the recognition that human symbolic systems—speech, writing, visual culture, music, etc.—function ideologically to represent the world we inhabit in ways that enrich and distort our understanding of the world.

This course is designed as a continuation of CCTP-5025 Statistical Methodology. It will focus on multivariate techniques of data analysis, including advanced topics in OLS regression analysis, methods for estimating statistical models with dichotomous dependent variables, such as logistic regression and discriminant analysis, and measurement models for incorporating multiple indicators into analysis, such as factor analysis. These techniques are commonly employed by social scientists. The course is designed not only to provide students with a hands-on approach to data analysis, but also to teach them to be informed consumers of statistical techniques. Students will be required to complete a data analysis project of their own design which may be conducted in conjunction with their thesis or other research project.

This lab-based seminar explores the “remix” as both an analytic framework and a method of critical practice. Remixes can be found in music, text, images, education, games, art, technology, fashion, and wherever something intended for a particular meaning or use is redeployed and reinterpreted within a new set of constraints. Digital technologies have catapulted remixes to a new level of visibility. But the remixing of culture precedes these technologies. This course begins with a theoretical opening discussion in which remix theory is unpacked, unmixed, and re-assessed as a semiotic process accelerated by new media technologies. We will also touch upon a variety of cultural issues raised, inspired, and/or challenged by the remix. Throughout the course, we will apply remix practices that uncover novel connections and new meanings across sources. Hands-on experiments explore the remix across a spectrum of media forms: text, sound, image, video, and simple interactive animations. By the end of the course, you will have practice applying the remix as both an analytic paradigm and a technical method. You will remix your own work and the work of others throughout the course, and your final project will be a research remix. Check out some of the recent Remix Practices projects.

Have you wondered about the deeper history of ideas that enabled us to get where we are today in all our computing and data systems? This course presents the history of computing from the perspective of the key concepts and design principles that have made computing possible, and not as a story of machines, products, or “innovations.” You will discover the very essential human ideas and capabilities that motivated the beginnings of computing since the 1600s, and have continued in various technical implementations down to us today. The key concepts are accessible to everyone, but have accidentally become “black boxed” (closed-off from understanding) by the industries for computing devices and data services that we receive as “products.” We will “de-blackbox” (open up for understanding) the key concepts in computing through a very interdisciplinary approach, and build out a view of computing that draws from overlapping histories in philosophy, logic, mathematics, science, communications, social contexts, and supporting technologies. Students will work on interdisciplinary research projects for doing their own “deep dive” into the history of concepts and contexts that have led to where we are today. By the end of the course, students will be able to apply this interdisciplinary knowledge to many other fields and careers, including design, applications in digital media, and becoming capable communicators for explainable and human-centered AI.

In this course, we will explore how innovations are brought to market through the lens of forming and launching a technology startup. We will examine each of the major functions that define an early stage company (e.g., technology, finance, operations, marketing) to understand how these areas interact and what they contribute to delivering long-term value to the fledgling company. To this end, as a class, we will spend the semester working through the formation and launch of a fictitious company, Hoya, Inc. that will form the foundation of our case-based class discussions. In parallel, students will form in groups of 2–4 to create their own in-course startups (which may be based on their own IRL startups, as applicable). Working in teams, the companies will apply the learnings from the readings and class to form, launch, and grow their own fictitious startups over the course of the semester, culminating in a mock pitch event on the final day.

Data visualization helps us translate qualitative and quantitative information — like interview responses or budget data — into compelling narratives. Through practical exercises and real-world case studies, this course introduces students to a variety of free and accessible data visualization tools that require no coding or special software, like Data Studio, Flourish, Infogram, and Data Basic. We complement this with theoretical and practical techniques for effective visual storytelling, such as typography and color theory fundamentals. We also critically assess the field of data visualization, grappling with questions of diversity and accessibility, the ramifications of AI, and data viz career opportunities. Students will leave with a robust and practical toolkit to use data visualization as a broad-purpose storytelling method that they can immediately apply at school, at work, and in their everyday lives.

This course will begin by addressing the complex issue of what constitutes civic engagement in the current era. We will examine the nature and implications of digital media for political engagement as well as the ways that citizenship has been redefined in this context. Media’s role in promoting and/or inhibiting the development of a vital culture of civic engagement will be explored. Topics to be covered include the shifting dynamics of electoral politics and public opinion in the digital age and media’s role in civic engagement of young people. Defining and measuring civic engagement has become increasingly challenging. The lines between offline and online engagement, authentic and performative engagement, and active versus passive engagement are blurring. We will tackle these issues directly through a project that will examine dimensions of civic engagement at Georgetown University. We will design and carry out a research project measuring the extent to which Georgetown students are engaging in specific aspects of civic engagement in conjunction with a project of the Institute for Citizens and Scholars Measurement Working Group which is taking place on twelve campuses nationwide. Finally, the course will focus on civil discourse as a central aspect of civic engagement. We will explore the central question: How has the public sphere been shaped by new communication technologies? The nature of the public sphere and political discourse has become increasingly contested. Misinformation abounds. Incivility and hostility have become hallmarks of political speech. A vital public sphere consisting of places where citizens come together to discuss core values, issues, and events is an essential component of civil society. Communication is necessary for developing norms of cooperation in society. Public debate allows citizens to communicate with government officials and institutions, and to engage in problem solving. Media help citizens establish community networks by generating awareness of issues and promoting voluntary activities. By providing information in a timely and accessible form, media enable people to make well-informed choices, thus building support for democratic governance. We will examine the characteristics of civil discourse, the sources of incivility, such as political polarization, and mechanisms for countering divisive trends, including ways to productively discuss difficult topics and civic education.

Images are invaluable tools for communication. Visualizations are highly useful to academics, artists, business professionals, among many other sectors. In this course, students will develop skill sets in managing, cleaning, and visualizing data. We will work together, drawing on best practices on cleaning and responsibly storing data. We will work with visualizing variables, bivariate relationships, networks, geospatial and interactive graphics. This course will primarily work with R Studio. We will work with the ggplot2, dplyr, and shiny packages in R Studio. No prior knowledge of R or R Studio is necessary.

Students will gain conceptual competencies and critical thinking skills for understanding and explaining the key design principles for: (1) computer systems, (2) kinds of data and data processes, (3) Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), (4) Cloud Computing and “Big Data” systems, and (5) how these technologies are now combined and integrated. Our learning method comes from combining: (1) Systems Thinking, (2) Design Thinking, (3) Semiotic Thinking, and (4) the Ethics and Policy viewpoint. Since these technologies are now widely used in every field and business sector, students will have achieved highly in-demand conceptual competencies for communicating clear, “deblackboxed” explanations of the fundamental principles of computing, AI/ML, and Cloud systems wherever they are used and applied.

Students learn the basics of physical computing and programming by using the Arduino platform to create an interactive artifact that senses user or environmental input and processes it into meaningful feedback. Artifacts can be pure aesthetic interactive works of art or purpose-built Internet-of-Things type objects.

Content Analysis is a methods course that teaches you how to take a large body of content – text, images, video, whatever! – and systematically classify it into categories. We then analyze the data produced by doing so using statistical analysis. The course is based around a group project that teams work on throughout the entire semester.

CCTP 646 explores the concepts and practice of sentiment analysis. Students will gain hands-on experience using RStudio to collect, manage and analyze data from social media sources.

This course is an epic survey of all things tech and law that teaches students to analyze legal materials like cases, legislation, and regulations with two aims. First and foremost, the class is a methods course designed to teach graduate students in technology fields how to grapple with the law. Second, it is a survey course of issues at the intersection of law and technology.

Survey Research Methods is a methods course that teaches how to design, execute, analyze, and critique a survey. It includes questionnaire design, as well as statistical analysis of survey data.

This course unpacks trends in the evolution of American election media and contemplates future developments. Innovations in campaign media not only have significant implications for the contesting of elections, they also can initiate changes to the larger political-media ecosystem. Media in elections is explored from the perspective of their influence on electoral institutions and processes, news and information sources, and voters.

Political media have been undergoing a significant evolution since the 1980s resulting in a hybrid media system that encompasses established and novel communication forms. This course explores the ways in which new media have fundamentally transformed political institutions, processes, and the news media. It examines the audiences for new media from a variety of perspectives, including the composition of political media audiences, motivations for political media use, political engagement via new media, and new media effects.

Statistical Methodology will give students a comprehensive introduction into basic quantitative research methods. We will conduct univariate and bivariate analyses using RStudio.

Through this broad-based qualitative methods course, it gives you the chance to learn different approaches to analyzing unstructured data. These approaches can include textual analysis, content analysis, and rhetorical analysis. Additionally, data collection can include observation, interview, and focus groups. You will practice these methods for collecting data, analyzing and forming conclusions multiple times throughout the semester.

Students will learn the key concepts and design principles for computer systems, data and information, software, interfaces and interaction, and the Internet and Web. Students will learn how to apply the methods from systems thinking and design thinking to “deblackbox” (make accessible) why and how everything in computing and digital media are based on implementing universal design principles, and how to use this knowledge to go beyond being merely consumers and users of the technologies to becoming thought leaders who can help others and participate in new designs.

Many industries and small businesses are embracing podcasting as a way to reinforce customer or supporter loyalty, and gain new listeners and clients. This course will train and equip students with the skills and tools they need to conceive, plan, and launch a high-quality ongoing podcast, – defining the concept, format, goals and identity of the podcast, including music/theme choices. Technical skills: voicing and microphone techniques, recording devices, editing platforms, music and production platforms.

Critical Studies in Journalism invites students to deconstruct the role and function of journalism across human history and specifically in today’s post-truth era. The course examines journalism’s roots, which can be traced to prehistoric times, as a fundamental human activity, takes stock of the current state of journalism and explores the future of journalism – culturally, socially and technologically.

Some technologies have persisted for millennia and are the backbone of civilization. Some technologies are recent innovations that could be undermining that civilization in the name of some imagined future. Other technologies, even those yet to be invented, will allow civilization to persist into the future. All of these are in need of critiques that will help us decide which category a given technology might fall into.

The course equips students to launch and lead a small multi-media start-up company, from conception to production and evaluation. Students will gain an understanding of the challenges of running a digital media production through strategic planning, budgetary planning and monitoring, hiring decisions and staff motivation, marketing, evaluation tools for progress and success, and legal and ethical challenges.

This class examines diagrams and visual thinking in comparative and historical perspective. Students will analyze diagrams and visual models as a unique communicative form that combines text, image, and elements of graphic design. They will also produce and design diagrams to share their own research. Note: This is not a course in applied data or information visualization (although elements of these practices may be considered).

The field of Systemic Design is growing exponentially. While both systems science and design have long and independent histories. Despite some common philosophical assumptions, the two fields remained largely distinct until the last decade. The growth of any field is dependent on advances in theory and method. Generally, current methods in Systemic Design are largely dependent on an elaboration and exploration of “complexity” in a variety of settings. Most commonly, methods that borrow “system mapping” from the systems science and engineering community with a variety of “participatory and co-design” techniques aimed at maximizing stakeholder engagement. However, systems mapping is only one step in addressing systemic problems. In engineering, next steps are often development, deployment, and testing of designed systems. However, where social systems are concerned interventions of this kind are not so simple. Borrowing another technique from engineering, simulation, as a faster and more ethical method of testing interventions in social systems is a potential next step. Yet, this approach has remained largely unexplored. Games are an ideal way of introducing simulation into systemic design. Games are simulations and have a rich history and connecting to systems thinking. Game Design is also its own unique subdiscipline with co-design and prototyping methods of its own. In this course, we will explore the history and practices of systems science and engineering, as well as games and game design as we develop and deploy a methodology for creating game simulations to test interventions in social systems. 

Friction makes things more difficult, and is therefore typically a bad thing when it comes to User Experiences. Many pages have been written about the virtues of minimizing friction and many more on ways to remove it from user interactions of every type. Yet, if we interrogate the philosophical assumptions underlying these positions other possibilities emerge. The field of user experience has advanced alongside other sub-disciplines in technology and design. This family resemblance extends to issues of ethics as well. Just as technologies have largely advanced with efficiency and profit as the main drivers of innovation, so too has UX evolved to uncritically reduce friction in the name of these same goals. “Buy it now” buttons reduce the friction on our purchases, infinite scrolls of news feeds or cat videos keep us from thinking about how much time we’ve been wasting, it has never been easier to “find our friends” as long as we’re willing to give up our privacy by accepting the default settings. As the technology industry begins to question its underlying assumptions, it is time to also rethink the value and the usefulness of friction. In this course we will subvert the most common methods of user experience design to introduce friction into our technological interactions and create much needed mental and physical space. How we use it is up to you.

There are no sites of identity more intense, more personal and more contentious than the intersection of gender, sexuality and the body. In this seminar, we will address the ways that the body has become a locus for the conflict and negotiation of public social, cultural, economic, historical norms and values with private spheres of love, intimacy, romance, friendship, sexuality, and gender. We will address questions of how gender, sex and sexuality are related and the manner in which the relations among them have historically changed over time. We will consider how ideas about public and private meanings of the body shift and the relation of critical thinking to the fact of these changes. The course readings include work by Lauren Berlant, Judith Butler, Simone de Beauvoir, Teresa de Lauretis, Michael Foucault, Sigmund Freud, bell hooks, Lisa Nakamura, Eve Sedgwick, Michael Warner, Linda Williams. The course includes film screenings that will include Vertigo, Imitation of Life, Alien, Brokeback Mountain, etc. Substantial reading, writing and discussion will be required, in addition to film screenings. Student evaluation will be based on short seminar papers and responses and the writing of a final research paper.

This course will examine the product development and management cycle. Students will learn about the product planning process and will apply these concepts toward the development of an individual product plan for a digital age product of their choosing. The course will start with a focus on digital age technologies. After this, the individual components of a product plan will be introduced. Students will develop their product plans as these various plan components are reviewed. These include: product description; target market; competitor analysis; technology trends; marketing strategies; financial statements; business case development; product evolution; and product exit strategy. At the end of the course, students will understand the product development and management process; know the various components of a product plan; have a fundamental knowledge of digital age technologies; and appreciate the elements of basic product-related financial statements.

This course will explore the growth of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as an industry concept, as an observable, contemporary communications phenomenon, and as a response to digital media culture and crowd-sourced journalism. Students look at the origin of CSR and track its progression to its current state amid the rise of digital media, the breakdown of traditional media, and the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision allowing corporations, in certain circumstances, to be viewed as individual citizens. In addition, students look at how companies manipulate CSR to assert their privileges, viewpoints, obligations, and ultimately their rights within the public discourse.

A makerspace is a collaborative work environment inside a school, library, or separate public/private facility, typically equipped with a range of fabrication tools for making a wide variety of materials and media. In this course students will learn not only the “hard” skills of design and fabrication with a wide range of tools, but also the “soft” skills of empathy, communication, and collaboration necessary for innovation. This course will provide hands-on, practical learning opportunities through skill-building and volunteer service in the Georgetown Maker Hub.

Journalism & Politics of Terror examines the role of journalism before, during and after specific events that strike terror into the public sphere. Students will examine various shades of terror and their relationships with the news media – starting from acts of violence (such as mass shootings, bombattacks) to climate related events –  in order to uncover the political underpinnings of these terror events.

This class introduces students to the guarantees for freedom of expression found in the international human rights treaties, the legal and policy frameworks around freedom of expression in the U.S. and the EU, as well as the alternative vision for Internet regulation put forward by China. Students will examine how global data flows strain application of local law and elevate conflicts of law and jurisdiction.

This course examines the intersection of fashion law, technology, government policy and social justice through the lens of design, fashion tech, retail, supply chain and sustainability. Course topics include: intellectual property law, data privacy, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), cultural appropriation, climate and environmental policy. 

This course examines the contemporary understanding of corporate communication, and how recent developments shape existing theory and practice into a new articulation of corporate strategy. Students will explore how organizations–both for-profit and non-profit–struggle to align key messaging to multiple stakeholders who are increasingly suspicious of carefully crafted and controlled corporate viewpoints. We will look at how the growing importance of leveraging corporate citizenship and other intangible assets play a significant, if sometimes controversial, role in forming today’s new era of business culture.

In Tech for Political Change, we will read case studies that illustrate how technology has changed politics. People in nineteenth-century China, for example, used the telegraph and newspapers to mobilize against the emperor. In the Philippines, citizens mobilizing by cell phone toppled a corrupt government. Mexico and other countries used public broadcasters to build national identity. Case studies from around the world reveal how various technologies function to create new political energy, enabling activists to challenge institutions while allowing governments to increase their power at home and abroad.

This course asks how we can use technology to exchange ideas with diverse national cultures, deploying such media genres as anime, manga, graphic novels, video games, and other forms of Fan Culture.  At the same time, our cross-cultural approach accordingly addresses such fields as International Relations, Translation Theory, and Visual Studies.  We will consider the foregoing genres in countries such as Japan, China, and Korea–in comparison with parallel forms in the U.S.

This course takes an interdisciplinary approach to our study of crisis communications, drawing on theories, research and strategies that shape global media messaging in a highly connected world. We will look closely at how corporations, governments, nonprofit organizations, and social and cultural activists craft, influence, and foment agenda using digital media and other high-tech tools to circumvent, contradict or delegitimize traditional media channels.

This course introduces students to a definition and characterization of the 21st century knowledge economy. The knowledge economy represents a major shift from the industrial economy of the last 200 years. The shift began in the 1950s and accelerated during the COVID pandemic. The essential change is from physical and financial capital to knowledge capital. Knowledge capital is no longer just an input to industrial processes and products, it is a whole new commodity and factor of production with different economic properties and behaviors. Knowledge capital changes who owns, leases and rents capital, how we work, what and how we manage, what investment means, and how we track and measure economic growth.

Strategic communications is crucial to the success of new ventures, startup companies and leadership. This course will use case study, research-based information, and topical reviews of current state to prepare students to understand and overcome communication challenges when interacting with media, investors, customers, and business partners.

Culture is like an iceberg – only a small percentage is visible to us. Culture consists of assumptions, beliefs, values, behaviors, and artifacts. We see the visible behaviors and artifacts, without understanding the invisible values, beliefs and assumptions. This course translates theoretical models to a practical framework. The framework is applied to a range of cultures to help us better understand how and why they act as they do. Understanding culture is essential in the 21st century because there is greater contact between cultures, new cultural conflicts, and increases in strategic failure due to lack of strategic-cultural alignment. 

Misinformation and Society gives a broad overview of recent research on misinformation. Topics include why misinformation is a problem, who is most susceptible to it and why, and what to do about it.

This course examines contemporary policy issues in the governance of content moderation by social media companies. It includes an overview of the traditional justifications for a regime of free expression and critiques of free speech as an abstract value, how governments regulate social media content moderation in the U.S., Europe, and China, and special issues in contemporary content moderation regulation including transparency requirements, dispute resolution systems, legal liability for social media, regulation of social media algorithms, political pluralism in social media and First Amendment obstacles to effective social media regulation.

This course will examine a global phenomenon that has taken on massive proportions in the world – the spread of disinformation. We will explore types of false information from misinformation to disinformation to propaganda. Additionally the course will cover the basics of psychological safety including stress management especially as it relates to constant exposure to propaganda and disinformation.

Chess is a prime example of an interdisciplinary Boundary Object that engages multiple disciplines, from computer science, to art and design, to media and culture. In this class we learn to adopt pan-disciplinary thinking as we unpack the game of chess from multiple disciplinary perspectives to achieve a more complete, nuanced, and complex understanding that can later be applied to similar objects that also converge interdisciplinary thought.

Communities and collaborative spaces are incubators of innovation, knowledge and intellectual capital. This course translates theory (structural elements – design and structure, community make up, identity, domain, culture, practice) into practice (origins, lifecycles, roles and responsibilities, enabling technologies, knowledge flows, strategic placement, impacts).  The course applies theory to a range of different domains, including emergency and disaster management, e-science and invisible colleges, homesteading and gardening communities, beekeeping, sports, spiritual/religious communities.

Networks are inherent to human survival – we are social beings and rely on one another to prosper – but they are invisible. Technology has made some of these networks visible. Over the millennia, we have leveraged the basic elements of networks to better understand the working of social systems, communication systems, economic systems, and the development of scholarship. In the knowledge economy, our networks are a form of relational capital. Network science focuses on big picture views of networks rather than the flow of knowledge among and across individual sources. This course focuses on the knowledge in networks, the six components of a knowledge network, and network behaviors. We present and test a conceptual model against real world networks, both constructive and destructive networks.

Breaking and (Re-)Building Trust in News will give students a fundamental understanding of the concept of trust in general and trust in journalism specifically. Trust is examined through the lens of social construction, institutionalism and communication in order to better gauge how trust in news may be broken and re-build in a world riddled with mis- and disinformation.

International & Comparative Privacy & Surveillance is a discussion-based course in which students will engage with contemporary issues in privacy and surveillance through an analysis of relatively recent domestic and international current events. In addition, students will take part in in-class discussions with industry professionals/experts.

This course will explore the means and ends of the modern IP system, analyzing how IP rights function, and how they influence new technology and contemporary culture. We will explore the major species of IP: copyright, trademark, and patent, with emphasis on the mutual challenges that copyright and digital technology pose to each other. Specific subjects explored will include: internet file-sharing and streaming, online copyright infringement, and digital rights management (DRM); the significance of copyright “fair use” in a networked age; software and business method patents; disputes over internet domain names, and others.

Introduction to Python and Machine Learning begins with an introduction to Python programming (the language of choice for data analysis and machine learning) and develops an appreciation of how these programming skills can be applied to solving data analysis and machine learning problems. During the semester students solve a series of increasingly complex programming and machine learning problems prior to completing a machine learning final project. By the end of the course, the student will be able to analyze more complex machine learning and data analysis models, adjust parameters, and gain insight into the different approaches for addressing data analysis, machine learning and artificial intelligence problems.

How has the use of communication technologies changed the nature of organizational work and individual interactions? This course will explore the changing nature of presence with the use and diffusion of communication technologies and their impact on how organizations and individuals interact. The first half of the course will focus on the way that organizations need to communicate internally and the second half of the course will focus on external messaging. As organizations continue to navigate hybrid and virtual options, understanding how communication is practiced is critical.

This overview of important theories in communication provides you with frameworks and explanations of communication practices within a variety of settings including interpersonal, organizational, mass communication, and mediated contexts. Whether you are interested in pursuing positions in industry or in research, these theories are the building blocks of all communication practices.

The purpose of this course is to equip students with the tools to identify and articulate the impacts of large firms in the tech industry. The course will cover the history of American antitrust laws, issues that intersect with antitrust policy, and the 116th United States Congress’s investigation of four major tech firms: Facebook, Google, Apple, and Amazon. Throughout this course, we will practice communicating complicated antitrust policies for non-expert audiences.

In this course you will use the language of new media to present your academic and professional identit(ies) by understanding your own story, crafting that story for key identified audiences, and telling that story with new media languages. You will develop a rich, outward-facing digital presence that will reflect your growth, learning, and expertise in ways designed to appeal to identified stakeholders. Check out some of the recent Digital Presence and Strategic Persuasion Projects.

This course is a survey of the internet in China. Students will explore the social, political, economic, historical, and cultural implications of this unique corner of cyberspace.

Unity is a popular and powerful game and simulation development platform that is used to create popular video games, as a platform to interactive Extended Reality experiences, and as a research platform for “Digital Twin” studies in city planning and other areas of emerging interest. This course teaches students the basics in programming and game development in Unity through hands-on tutorials and the development of a unique game experience conceived and developed by each student.

With grounding in Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer’s theories about dialectical relationships driving public perceptions of art, politics, persuasion and culture, this course will examine a range of technological tensions that have been taken up by creative works of writing, filmmaking, music, activism and immersive theater. Each session will focus on one recurrent narrative theme in which the role of technology has tended toward utopian or dystopian visions in response to current events, economic incentives or sociopolitical factors. While some aspects of the course will be co-created with students, significant discussion and critique will be devoted to narratives about digital equity, privacy and surveillance, youth and technology, information quality and intellectual property.

This reading-intensive course delves into an extended historical case study of the British East India Company to examine the role of information as a lever of control at the state, national, corporate, and individual level. A research paper will apply selected social construct, societal, and identity theories to understand the complexity of wielding that lever. With contemporary examples of technologies provided, students will then produce a policy paper to advise a contemporary organization on its use of information levers. Finally, a comparative briefing will conclude the course, providing students with insight into how unique information levers allow for the manipulation of power at every level of society.

Using the outlook of finite and infinite game play, this in-depth survey course deconstructs examples of decision-making in the rise of President Trump, the spread of Genghis Khan, and the adoption of technological evolution. Through reading books, listening to a musical, writing weekly journal articles and a few short papers, this discourse-heavy class will provide students with the ability to understand and explain strategic leadership perspectives through the framework of communication, culture, and technology.

Whereas artists, engineers, and designers used to use pen and paper to draft their designs, they now look towards graphic and computer aided design softwares to simplify and speed up their workflow. Similarly, makers and creators now utilize digital fabrication machines such as 3D printers, laser cutters, and CNC routers to directly turn their digital ideas into physical creations. In this course, students will be introduced to and engage with all aspects of the design and fabrication process, developing hands-on skills with several design softwares and digital fabrication machines.

Control of digital infrastructure has become a proxy for political power, mediating so much of importance in society from national security and the global economy to individual human rights and the future of truth. Public policy at these cyber control points is technically complex and carried out by a combination of governments, technical design communities, global coordinating institutions, and the rising power of private actors such as network operators and social media companies. Students taking Global Cyber Policy will examine the debates, technologies, and stakes of the global cyber policy flashpoints constructing our modern society.